Featured Now you too can be

Think modern versions like NAS/NIV catch this better, as its plain that "he" is satan, and that jesus is prophecied here as being one that will come to crush satan head, while satan bites his heel... Conformed in book of hebrews, as death of Jesus crushed/killed the devil and his works!

 

The scriptures nowhere say all men are unable to believe. They say some men are unwilling to believe, that is a different subject altogether.

Unwilling and unable are not the same thing. I am able to jump off a tall building, but I am not willing to do so. I am very willing to flap my arms and fly like a bird, but I am unable.

Jhn 8:8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

Jesus said the Holy Spirit would reprove the world of sin. To reprove means;

Jesus said the Spirit will reprove the world, but you say he cannot do this. If a man is unable to be convicted and corrected by the Word of God, then the Word of God is also unable to reprove the world.

This has probably NEVER occurred to you. But when you deny that unregenerate men cannot be reproved by the Word of God, you are denying God's power.

But being convicted and enlightened is not regeneration. To be regenerated means to be made alive again.

 

The very onus and point of this thread is to spew bile and vicious insult...this is sick. And an Administrator jumps in on the fun. Why wouldn't he? I mean it's a non-Calvinist being unnecessarily insulted...fair game right? It's fun and games to single out one BB member....who is (comparatively at least) quite gracious, patient and un-insulting...(Thinging Win here). Especially when it is quite often 254 to 1....and just pile on the insults. If I had to put up with half of the insults levelled at Win, I would be banned by now.

I haven't been a member long...and haven't seen all threads...but my own observation so far is....I would rather be wrong in some of my Theology....and have a Spirit more like Win's...than be right, and come up with bile like this. What trash this is.

 

I do not believe man regenerates himself whatsoever. I had no ability whatsoever to make myself alive, I was dead in sins. If Jesus had not died for me, I would remain dead in sins. It was only because I heard the gospel (and I could not have heard the gospel unless God had provided it) and believed on Jesus that I am alive, all my sins are forgiven.

This is the problem, Calvinists think of spiritual death like physical death. A physically dead person has no abilities at all, he cannot see, hear, smell, touch, whatever etc... But that is not what spiritual death means. It means to be condemned, it means to be under a death sentence. It means to be separated from God, to be at enmity with God.

Now think of a person on death row. This is what a spiritually dead person is like. He is locked up and cannot escape. He is condemned and will be put to death eventually. But he still has ability, he can hear, see, think, and all other abilities. Nevertheless, he is imprisoned or enslaved, he is not free. This is what spiritual death is like.

Now, because Jesus has died for us and paid our sins, we are offered pardon if we will trust on Jesus. We are forgiven our sins and released from prison, which is the condemnation of death. We are no longer imprisoned under the law, we are now under grace. We are free.

Even a Calvinist says a person must believe on Jesus. If believing is a work before regeneration, it is still a work after regeneration. If you believe faith is a work, then you believe a man is saved by works.

Faith or believing simply means to trust or rely on another. It is a ceasing of all work, all effort to save one's self, and to depend on Jesus alone to save us.

It is like going to a doctor when you have a brain tumor or serious heart condition. No man can operate and heal himself. We must go to a doctor and trust him. We allow him to put us to sleep and operate. We do not heal ourselves, the doctor does, but the doctor cannot heal us unless we trust him and allow him to do his work.

Jesus compared himself to a physician.

Mar 2:17 When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Now, no man boasts when he has been to a surgeon who operated on his brain or heart that he healed himself. Have you ever known even one person who had heart surgery who bragged that he healed himself? I certainly haven't, but I have heard many people praise a doctor for healing him.

The gospel convicts a man and shows him he is sick in sin and will die. It is not much different from going to a doctor and having an X-Ray. The doctor tells you that you have a brain tumor and will die unless you have immediate surgery. If you believe the doctor, you trust him and he operates and heals you. You have done no work, the doctor did all the work. You simply placed your life in his hands and trusted him to heal you.

Likewise, the gospel tells us we are sinners and will die. But Jesus is the great physician who can heal us. If we will trust him and place our life in his hands he will heal us. He does the work, he regenerates us, he gives us life. He forgives all our sins. We are set free from the condemnation we were enslaved under. We are now under his grace and set free from sin. We are now spiritually alive.

If a man is regenerated before he believes, then he is alive without Christ. This denies Jesus. It is not Jesus that gives you life in your system, you believe the Father gives you life without Jesus. This is serious error.

It is like saying you were healed before you go to Jesus. If you are healed, you have no need to go to Jesus to heal you. You have denied Jesus.

No one is spiritually alive until they go to Jesus and Jesus heals you.

Spurgeon realized what I am talking about;

Do you see what Spurgeon said? He said if a man is already regenerate, then it is ridiculous to preach to that man to believe on Jesus when he is already regenerated and saved. Spurgeon said this would be like offering medicine to someone who is already healed.

And this is what you teach, you teach a man has already been regenerated and made alive BEFORE he trusts on Jesus. He is already healed, he is already regenerated and spiritually alive, he would have no need of Jesus. This view denies Jesus.

 

This is so untrue, and you know it to be so, and yet you speak it.

 

Since you quoting Spurgeon....

he also held that regeneration and faith happen at same time, One part God does when the Gospel is preached to sinners, other thing we do!

 

ONLY IF he also holds that:

Since you quoting Spurgeon....

he also held that regeneration and faith happen at same time, One part God does when the Gospel is preached to sinners, other thing we do!

 

Faith is part of the "gift of God" (Eph. 2:9). Spurgeon taught that saving faith, although exercised by man, is a gift. Man does not possess the faith to believe apart from God granting it (Rom. 8:7; 1 Cor. 2:14). If we possess saving faith on our own then we have something to brag about. As it is, we don't possess it unless granted from God, so even if we exercise saving faith it is God who gets the glory.

 

Herald, we don not "brag" about the ability to have faith, if in fact that is how God designed us in the first place. I do not KNOW that this is the case, but it is my personal feeling and position that we were created from the very beginning to seek God, it is built into our DNA. Evidentially, looking at cultures across time and the globe, man has seemed to have an innate desire to seek a diety. My responsibility is to live and invest myself in pointing people to the one and only True God, YHWH. To inform them, that they too can be personally and rightly related to God through Christ and only Christ.

 

that falls under what He saw "God doing' about our salvation", as He supplied whatever was needed to allow us the means to respond by faith in jesus....

 

If you're basing your doctrinal position on "feeling" rather than the Word of God, then you have no foundation on which to stand. Feelings are subjective. They can't be argued against because they're personal in nature. Either a doctrine is taught by the Word of God or it's not. If it's not taught by the Word of God then it's not worth believing.

 

I'm not following you here. God provides the means (faith) that we don't possess according to our fallen nature. God doesn't provide saving faith on the basis that he foresaw our choice of Him, He provides it in the absence of that future choice. In fact, once He provides saving faith we then believe.

 

saying that Gods part of salvation is to enable us to respond, to grant us spiritual grace to be able to receive/believe on jesus, as He both opens our hearts/minds up, grants us the faith, but our part is to trust in jesus!

We still HAVE to put faith, that He gave us, in jesus in order to get saved!

 

Christs atonement is for ALL.

And ALL have oportunity.

The saved are the whosoever-wills. The lost are the whosoever-wonts.

That is if you are concerned with "what sayeth the Lord...(the scriptures)... rather than "what sayeth Calvin..(Calvins ideas)